


Day 4 - Forehead Touch

by Raepocalypse



Series: I Hear You And I Know [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fictober, Fictober 2017, Fluff, Genyatta - Freeform, M/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, just straight fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 06:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12360000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raepocalypse/pseuds/Raepocalypse
Summary: Fictober Day 4 OTP Challenge is Forehead touch.Genji is unsure as to how to move forward with his soulmate - or even if his soulmate will want to.





	Day 4 - Forehead Touch

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't what I promised to you guys for the Genyatta part of this AU but I hope you like it anyway. Also I know I'm super behind on this whole Fictober thing, but listen. I keep getting distracted by the Pokemon AU

Soulmates were a weird thing, Genji was deciding. He knew that they came in different shapes and sized, that they weren’t always romantic. It was rare, though, for anyone to have a soulmate that was platonic, and it chafed to think that’s what he had with Zenyatta. It made his chest ache, despite the machinery that made up most of it. How could he have come this far only to find a soulmate that was nothing more than his teacher?

“You are troubled,” the serene voice rang out, interrupting the silence of the room. The omnic turned, head tilted curiously. He barely had eyes, but they seemed to peer at him nonetheless. 

Behind his faceplate, Genji‘s lips tightened and he averted his eyes. It took him several moments to figure out how to explain what was wrong. Predictably, Zenyatta waited patiently. He was always patient. “We are soulmates,” he said flatly. 

Zenyatta didn’t react. He didn’t move and he had no facial ticks to give him away. Somehow, though, Genji knew he had fucked up this conversation already. There was something in the stillness that didn’t ring right. “This is troubling to you,” he replied, somewhere between a question and a statement. Even for an omnic, even for a monk, the words were a little too measured. 

Frustrated with himself already, Genji dropped from the Lotus he had been holding. “No. Yes. I’m- What kind of soulmates are we? I have heard of stories where people are connected in ways that are… not romantic, but they aren’t common. How do we know? Is that what we are?” He swallowed, thinking of the scars over his soulmark, the way it had been slashed open and rehealed with a scar across the words. His voice was getting louder, more desperate. Almost pleading. “Are we… Are you nothing more than my master, my teacher? Are we friends? I have been here for months and you have little more than touched me. I know that I am… I know that I am not whole, I know that I am not like you, but not like other men either, but I-”

“Sparrow,” Zenyatta said gently, holding up a hand to interrupt his frantic speech. It was the first time since they’d met he’d ever seen the monk do anything of the sort. Gently, he drifted closer, a metal hand extending to him. “Is this discomfort related to what you are or what I am?”

He stopped. Blinked. Wide eyes darted down to the outstretched hand and back up to the impassive face. He was still, as still as ever, but in just a few words, he had gone from an infallible teacher to the nearest thing to a man an omnic could be. 

Genji reached out, sliding their hands together and lacing their fingers. “Who am I to turn away a beautiful soul just because it is in a metal body?” he asked softly. If he’d been speaking to a human, he might have worried that he wouldn’t hear it. Zenyatta always heard him no matter how quiet he was, though.

He drifted a little closer then, catching Genji’s other hand. “I might say the same thing to you,” he replied. There was something wobbly in his voice, a waver that Genji didn’t think could come from an omnic. Maybe they showed nerves after all. “Not many Omnics have marks. Did you know?”

“Not all humans have them either,” Genji replied, aching to get closer, to feel some kind of contact. He didn’t know how the thin, cold metal could provide such comfort, but it was a balm to him. 

Zenyatta nodded, but kept going. “True, but statistically, there is roughly a 1 in 10,000 chance an Omnic will discover a mark on their own body.” His face turned down, silence falling over them for a moment. Genji realized he was looking at his own mark, inspecting the etching of metal on his forearm. “I am very lucky, Genji. Not only do I have a soulmate, but that soulmate is  _ you _ . You ask if we are nothing more than student and teacher, or nothing more than friends.” Carefully, he extracted his hand, reaching up to cup Genji’s cheek.He was undeterred by the metal he touched, the soft  _ clink _ of his fingers against the faceplate. “I ask you how I could be so demanding as to ask you to be any one thing when you offer me so much.”

If his lungs were still organic, Genji suspected his breath would have caught. He’d been with men and women and everything else, but they all paled in comparison to the monk across from him. 

“I love you,” he said, as though that were an answer. 

Zenyatta nodded. “And I, you.”

Genji reached up, both hands fitting to the side of his face. There was no warmth there, nothing soft. No give under his fingers. Still, just that contact warmed him, relaxed him. “How do I kiss you?” he asked, wanting nothing more than to be closer.

The omnic laughed softly and leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together gently. The cool metal felt like home against his scarred skin. “For now, this will do, my Sparrow.”

***

The first time it happened, it stopped Genji at the onset of a soulmate-related near-existential crisis. From there, however, exploring one another had to take some time. Not for sex. Genji wasn’t ready to explore this new body that way, and he wasn’t sure how to broach the topic with Zenyatta. No, the pair of them first had to explore how this all worked, how this all applied to them, what all they wanted from this and one another. 

Genji was sure he knew. If they had met when he was whole, he would have wrapped him in his arms in a moment, would have kissed across his face. Despite the years he had now spent in the half-metal body that had been rebuilt for him, he was still unused to the feeling of unsureness. His affection for the omnic was as effortless as his acceptance of Genji seemed to be. Whether that acceptance was romantic or not was another matter. Did Omnics love? People had only learned that they had souls when the marks began appearing on them and it was, in the end, what really stopped the wars and the disasters. No fighting or bargaining, but a human and an omnic who spat venom at one another and found something beautiful in it. 

After the initial time they had admitted their feelings to one another, it became a little more common. Walking in the gardens, something they had done for months together in silence and peace, became walking in the gardens with cool hands clasped. The rage that had bubbled in Genji’s chest had calmed upon meeting Zenyatta, but it no longer even rippled, still as the surface of a mirror. From time to time, he repeated himself, reminded Zenyatta that he loved him. He never hesitated to reply. 

“How do I kiss you?” he would ask again. 

Zenyatta would pause again, each time, then lean forward and press their foreheads together and say again, “For now, this will do.”

At first, Genji chafed at the idea that they couldn’t kiss like a normal couple. He missed kissing. As they grew closer, however, and their touches went from holding hands in the garden to curling up as Genji slept, to Zenyatta lounging against him as they read, he realized that maybe he didn’t need that kind of intimacy to know he was in love. Maybe without a mouth, kissing Zenyatta would be hollow anyway. Maybe the affection he was offered would be enough if he actually allowed it to be enough. 

“Zenyatta?” he said softly, curled on his side and facing the omnic, fingers laced together and their heads laid gently on pillows across from one another. 

The lights flickered to life, like Zenyatta had been asleep and was blinking awake. Was he doing that because he was asleep? Could he sleep? Or did he just lie with Genji to keep him company? “Yes, my Sparrow?”

“I love you,” he murmured. 

“I love you,” Zenyatta replied, instant, but not automatic. There was a warmth in his voice that made Genji wonder at how anyone could ever have thought omnic were the cold, soulless robots people had once believed them to be. 

The next part of the ritual was to ask. He knew that. It was his part, one that he had created. Instead, however, he shifted closer, laid his head on Zenyatta’s pillow (Why did he need a pillow?) and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Good night.”

Zenyatta was still and quiet for several moments, his gears and fans whirring loudly as he thought and processed. Finally, he shifted closer, wrapped both arms around the man. “I love you,” he said again.

“I love you, too,” Genji assured him, slinging an arm comfortably across his waist and nestling down into the mattress, his forehead pressed to Zenyatta’s gently. 


End file.
